Re: Word vs. Frame
GlacierI have searched everywhere, and cannot find a recent comparison of MS
Word (2000) and FrameMaker (at least 6.0). The most recent one I can find is
Alex Ragen's comparison from 2000. I hoping that someone may have created a
comparison in a table-like format.
The company I work for has decided it is time to revisit the tool we use to
create our documentation. The problem is, I am absolutely in love with
FrameMaker and can't imagine going back to Word. Our manuals can be quite
large, with multi-chapters, conditional text, etc. and my experience has
been that Master Documents in Word is still unstable.
Has anybody completed a comparison chart like this that they would be
willing to share with me? I know I am biased, so probably not the best
person to complete a comparison such as this.
Have a great long weekend everyone!
Suzette Leeming
Telecommuting in Keswick, Ontario
It still requires that the user use numerous "work-arounds" to get it to behave in the manner that it is advertised to work.
This still includes numbering, positioning of graphics, styles and their stability, cross-referencing, headers and footers, indices, table of contents, and combining multiple files to create a large document.
In other words, Word still doesn't work much better than it ever did. It just requires more RAM.
Anytime that software requires the user to "work-around" decade old problems to make the software function in the manner that it is advertised to work, then it is not the software that you need.
For the extra 300 to 400 dollars that you pay for FrameMaker, you get software that can do cross-references without corrupting them. Indices that are stable, tables of contents that function correctly and can be formatted separately.
You also get stable character, paragraph, and table styles (table styles are unknown in Word). You can autoformat cross-references, hypertext and other special text. Hidden text can be useful, and not just how they format cross-references.
Headers and footers can be automated, and stable, as can the page margins.
FrameMaker still provides multiple file large documents, very servicable graphic importation and placement. It also provides the best way to format tables, by styles. Exporting the FrameMaker file to other formats is also much easier than in Word. Acrobat works much better, and FrameMaker will make the cross-references and indices, and tables of contents hypertext in Acrobat without a lot of effort. Moving into HTML, or XML is also much better than anything that Word does.
Word is not part of the solution, it is STILL part of the problem.
You know you can also program using notepad. But why on earth would you want to limit yourself by using an inadequate tool?
Scott
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References:
Word vs. Frame: From: Suzette Leeming
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